Longarm 397 : Longarm and the Doomed Beauty (9781101545973) (10 page)

Longarm poked his hat brim off his forehead and stared at the fire. It probably wasn't a risk he should take. If he should buy the farm, the girl would be on her own and relatively defenseless. On the other hand, he couldn't resist the urge to check out the camp yonder. Even on foot—a horse would make too much noise—it wouldn't take him long. If he saw he was too badly outnumbered, he'd hotfoot it back to the fire.

He returned to the camp where the girl slept beneath the ledge and added a couple more logs to the fire. Then he headed back down the game path and into the main canyon, striding quickly but as quietly as possible, wishing he had a good pair of Indian moccasins to make the trek even quieter. He moved at an angle to the stream, figuring the sound of the water pouring over rocks and occasional beaver dams would drown any noise he'd make.

He headed upstream, crouching, trying to keep as many trees as possible between himself and the distant glow. Slowly, the fire grew in size before him, blotted out occasionally by thickets and trees as he moved, following the crooked bed of the stream.

He stepped between two birches. A pistol-like crack sounded behind him. He crouched and spun, clicking the Winchester's hammer back, heart racing. Then he saw the gray-brown blur of the deer dashing off through the brush on the other side of the creek, heard the thud of its hooves as it bounded away up a southern feeder canyon, snapping twigs as it fled.

He spun forward again and dropped to a knee.

His heart started to slow, but apprehension tore like sharp talons at the back of his neck. Had the men in the camp heard the deer?

He held his position, his ears almost aching with the strain of listening for the slightest sound. When all he heard was the subtle chuckling of the stream, and decided that the deer he'd flushed had not been heard or considered a concern, he rose and continued striding forward.

The fire grew until he could see sparks wheeling and sputtering above the dancing flames. He got down and crawled, moving one hand, one knee at a time, holding his rifle just above the ground and stopping every few steps to look carefully around. From ahead, three separates sets of snores rose. When he was just beyond the edge of the firelight, he rose to his knees behind a large cottonwood, and looked around its left side.

He'd been right. Three men. There might be a picket or two, but he didn't think so, as there were only three sets of blanket rolls and tack.

Carefully, he perused the camp. The three men lay within a few feet of the fire they'd built and banked. He could see the bearded face of only one of the trio and recognized him from the wolf pack he'd seen earlier. The other two had their backs to him. Both lay on their sides, their shoulders rising and falling as their raucous snores lifted, clear in the silent night air. Rifles lay within quick grabbing distance, as did their boots.

Longarm drew his head back behind the tree.

Three was a manageable number given that they were all asleep. But there was no telling how far away the others in the pack were. Probably not within a mile or so, as this was a big, rugged country, and the splinter groups would need to put some distance between each other to give the separate canyons and watersheds a thorough scouring.

Still, he'd use his guns as a last . . .

One of the men coughed and grunted. Longarm heard the rustling of blankets, the squawk of a cartridge belt. He pressed his shoulder hard against the tree, trying to make himself as small as possible, so he wouldn't be seen from the camp.

The man coughed and grunted again, and Longarm heard the man's knees pop as he rose from his bedroll.

“Ah, fuck,” the man groaned.

Longarm squeezed the rifle in his hands, held it tight straight up and down in front of him, gritting his teeth. While the other two men continued snoring, the man who'd risen muttered something Longarm couldn't hear. The lawman saw the man's shadow slide across the ground to his right, moving toward his covering tree.

Longarm ground his molars together and clamped his thumb over the Winchester's hammer as he heard the soft thuds of stocking feet moving toward him. The man's groans and muttered curses grew louder, and then Longarm smelled the rancid horse sweat of the man as he passed about six inches off Longarm's right shoulder. He stepped out into the night and stopped about six feet from the crouching lawman.

The man fumbled around in front of himself and then threw his head back and flexed his knees. He had thick, curly, dark-red hair though there was a bald spot at the top of his head about the size of a silver cartwheel. He wore a pistol on his right thigh; a big bowie knife was sheathed on his left.

A dribbling sound rose. A stream of piss shone between the killer's spread legs, angling onto the leaves and pine needles in front of his feet clad in torn socks. The pee steamed in the chill air.

Longarm knew what he was going to do without thinking about it. Lifting his rifle butt-forward, he stepped straight out away from the tree and rammed the butt plate as hard as he could against the back of the man's neck.

There was a cracking sound as the man's head snapped back on his shoulders. It hung crooked as he sighed and stumbled forward, continuing to pee. The man dropped to his knees, remained there, head hanging awkwardly for a full five seconds. As he started to sag forward, Longarm reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt collar, eased him slowly onto the ground.

He lay still on the ground damp from his own piss—instantly dead of a broken neck.

One of the other two men stirred behind him, rasping, “What the hell was that?”

Longarm grabbed the bowie knife from the dead man's belt sheath, whipped around, and saw one of the other two men by the fire reaching for his rifle. The lawman bounded forward, past the tree, and flipped the blade by the end of its staghorn handle. Longarm hadn't thrown a knife in a month of Sundays, but it was an automatic maneuver, and the knife flashed end over end through the tops of the dancing flames.

There was a thumping crunch.

The man on the other side of the fire wheezed and dropped the rifle as he looked down at the knife handle sticking out of his chest. Longarm didn't wait to see the effects of his throw. The third killer, who lay to the far left side of the fire, had just lifted his head and was blinking his eyes. As he rose onto his arms, Longarm strode the last few feet. The man's eyes widened when he saw the big man lunging toward him. Before he could even begin to reach for his rifle leaning against his saddle, Longarm swung his Winchester like a club. It smashed against the side of the man's head with the sound of a branch breaking, crushing his skull.

The man whipped over onto his side and jerked as the life sputtered from his badly damaged brain.

Longarm slipped into the shadows just beyond the fire and dropped to a knee, looking around and listening for any possible pickets running back to see what all the commotion had been about. There were no sounds at all—not even the distant yips of a coyote or the screech of a hunting nighthawk. Even the horses that had been picketed beyond the fire stood still, all three looking toward Longarm, their eyes dully reflecting the fire's glow.

One stomped, then stretched its neck to nibble something from its hip. Longarm almost snorted at the horses' lack of concern for their dead owners.

He remained there on one knee, looking around, wanting to be certain he was alone out here before stepping back into the firelight where he'd be easy pickings with a rifle. Finally, he depressed the Winchester's hammer, returned to the fire, and kicked dirt on it, dousing it almost instantly, leaving only the wood glowing like volcanic rock to offer what little light he needed.

Quickly, wasting no movement—he wanted to get back to the girl as fast as possible—he saddled two of the dead killers' horses, setting the third one free of its picket line. He took one Winchester and a Colt .44 with handsomely carved peachwood grips and plundered a set of saddlebags for a spare box of .44 rifle rounds. With ten men on his trail, he could use all the extra firepower he could carry and still be relatively light on his feet.

Also amongst the men's gear he found spare, relatively clean clothing for the girl, a food bag containing a field-dressed jackrabbit and a burlap pouch of pinto beans. He stowed the duds, food, and ammo in one pair of saddlebags, draped the bags over one of the two horses he intended to steal—a mouse-brown dun with a four-pointed star on its face—and rode out away from the camp, leading the second horse by its reins. As he'd expected the third horse followed, unwilling to be left behind.

To keep the noise down, knowing how far sound carried in the mountains at night, he walked the horses back into the narrow canyon in which his fire still burned, albeit much lower than before, just a few small flames licking at the charred branches in the fire ring. As he passed the bivouac, he saw the girl's blond head lift from her saddle. She made a startled sound, and Longarm called to her, “All's well. Custis Long here with a few more horses to add to our cavvy.”

He chuckled, not so much out of his finding humor in the situation but because his blood was up. Three men down.

Ten to go . . .

 

The next morning he got Miss Pritchard to eat a few bites of the rabbit he cooked on a spit he'd fashioned from two green willow branches. She accepted the cup of smoking coffee he gave her and watched him with mute interest for a time as they both ate.

Then she asked, canting her head up the narrow notch toward the five horses tied to his picket line, “So . . . where'd the three horses come from? Did you find a ranch out here?”

“Not exactly.” Longarm bit off a hunk of the stringy but flavorful rabbit and chewed.

She swallowed a bite of the meat, blew ripples on her coffee, and took a small sip. “Not exactly . . .”

“Found three of the Younger gang camped out yonder, in the big canyon.”

She stared at him over the steaming cup of coffee. It was false dawn, the hollow still filled with heavy shadows. It was as cold as it had been a few hours ago, but it would warm up fast as the sun climbed. Nearby, an owl hooted.

“And you . . . ?”

“Let's just say they've harassed their last murder witness.” He thought of young Leroy Panabaker, and ground his jaws. “And burned their last town.”

She stared at him, lips parted. Longarm grabbed the coat he'd taken from the killers' camp. In it, he'd wrapped some extra clothes. He tossed it across the fire to the girl. “There you go. Put those on. Keep you from catchin' a chill up on the high divide.”

She looked at the bundle in front of her, then wrinkled a brow at Longarm. “High divide?”

“That's where we're headin'.”

“I thought I was going home.”

Longarm shook his head as he chewed. “They'll be expecting us to head down the watersheds to Pinecone. We're gonna do the opposite.” He jerked a thumb at the gradually lightening sky. “We're heading up. Don't worry—it won't be for long. I figure they'll get bored with this vengeance quest of theirs. I'm sure Babe was a right good leader, but I figure they're mostly out here to terrorize you and anyone associated with you mainly for kicks and giggles. They burned the town, or part of the town, for the same reason. And meanness, of course. They're a nasty bunch. But they'll get bored out here after a couple of days, and head on back to Utah or wherever the hell they're from, find someone else to bother until I can throw a loop around 'em.”

“What if they don't get bored, Deputy Long? What happens if they keep coming after us? I find your having taken down those three last night right admirable. Damned impressive, even. But do you actually think, if we can't outrun them, that you can kill them
all
?”

Longarm hiked a shoulder. “I reckon we'll have to see.” He bit the last bit of rabbit meat off the leg bone and jerked his head toward the rocks rising on his left, near where the horses waited, swishing their tails. “Go on and put them duds on. Gonna get cold where we're goin', Miss Pritchard.”

She gave a frustrated snort and looked at him pointedly. “My mother and father are going to be very worried about me. Especially after they hear what happened to the town of Snow Mound.”

“Then they'll be all the more relieved when they finally see you walk through the front door again.” He narrowed an eye at her. “That's all I'm tryin' to do, Miss Pritchard. Get you home safe and sound.” He decided to play a card he'd hoped he could keep in his sleeve. “You wouldn't want us to lead that gang of town burners back to your hometown, would you? Maybe even to your folks' front door?”

She considered this, folding her upper lip over the brim of her coffee cup. Finally, with a fateful sigh, she set the cup down and picked up the bundle. She untied the sleeves of the buckskin mackinaw, making a face. “Smells like sweat,” she sniped, then opened the coat and picked up the blue jeans. “Too long.” She draped the jeans over her knee and picked up the plaid flannel shirt. “Way too big.”

“The sleeves and cuffs you can roll up. I threw a rope in there—you can use that to keep your pants on. There's gloves there, too. Even some extra wool socks.”

“Thought of everything didn't you?” she said coolly.

Longarm hiked a shoulder.

She pressed her lips together and shot him a snide look. “I suppose you'd like to put them on me, too?”

“You're a big girl. I figure you can dress yourself.”

“I've seen the way you've looked at me.”

“Now, I can't help that, can I? You're damn nice to look at.”

“You're a big, lusty man—aren't you, Deputy Long? I suppose there wouldn't be anything to stop you from having your way with me out here. There wouldn't be much I could do. Would there?”